Title: What Lies Beneath

Author: Alli Snow (snow@sjhw.net)

Rating: PG13 for content, situations

Category: SJR, post-episode, angst

Spoilers: Through Beneath the Surface

Archive: SJ and Heliopolis

Prologue

They were back.

Back to a place they'd never been.

The room, the people, the sounds and smells were vaguely reminiscent of something, but otherwise unfamiliar. And one thing was very obvious: they were underground. Again. There was the distinct feel of pressure, of weight, tons of weight above them, between them and the sky. Again.

A desperate need to see the sun, the sky, the stars, was like a physical pain, sharp and deep.

There were two bright spots in all of this. Firstly, this new place couldn't be any worse then the one they had just left; that was impossible. The taste of betrayal was sour; even the stale air of this new place was sweeter. Secondly - and this was the important one - they hadn't been separated. They were still together, even here. The intense rush of warm relief overwhelmed the burgeoning feelings of panic and pain. They were together. That's how it had started, that was how it would end.

Chapter 1

Was it just me, or did General Hammond not look the least bit surprised as we stepped through the Stargate?

There was a hint of confusion on his face, probably directed at our horrid, yam-colored vestments, Carter's chopped hair, Daniel and my scruffy faces... our all-in-all unkempt appearance. And there was a flicker of concern for the similarly-mangy crowd that poured in through the Gate on our heels, clutching at each other fearfully, blinking in the relative brightness of the embarkation room, staring at the armed SFs and the techies and their technology with unqualified awe.

"Welcome back, SG-1" said Hammond, standing across the room.

Nope, not a bit of surprise at all.

Invincible SG-1. It was a kind of running gag at the SGC, and I didn't like it. Positive thinking was all well and good, but I had enough of a paranoid and - admittedly - superstitious side that it felt making a joke of our good fortune was like begging for it to end. That our words had the power to turn the gods - so to speak - against us. So it wouldn't hurt to have Hammond looking the slightest bit relieved at our good fortune. It was a way of showing appreciation for it.

"Thank you, sir," I boomed as the Gate shut down, wanting my new-found friends to see that the bald, short-sleeved guy and I were on good terms. "You didn't have to wait up for us."

The joke, if it could even be called that, was met with a good-humored snort; he knew what I was thinking. "The rescue team is prepping as we speak."

Well... good to know that he had dedicated at least a few resources to retrieving his favorite wayward team. "Sorry, sir... you know me and curfews."

I heard Frasier paged over the P.A., and saw Daniel sitting Brenna down at the foot of the ramp as Teal'c gently directed traffic around them. Carter was moving confidently through the dirty, sweaty, orange-and-black throng, assessing any and all injury and illness, offering a smile here, a pat there... even to Kegan. The dark-skinned woman, once abysmal, had changed drastically since the sunlight had touched her face, since she had seen the blue sky, the warm sun, the panoramic city-scape, since she had learned that there was a better life waiting for her on the other side of a big, glowing, blue puddle.

We'd all changed, hadn't we?

I smuggled a few glances at Carter while she was distracted, and I knew from the prickling of my scalp that she made a few circumspect peeks of her own... but as though by silent contract, direct eye contact was never made. Our friendship had evolved to the point that we didn't need words to speak to one another... and even 'saying' anything about It at this point would be a mistake. We'd said all that we COULD say about It: by law, by reason, by common sense. It had to be dropped, it had to be ignored... once more, we had to leave it in the room.

If this kept up, our entire relationship would be scattered, bits and pieces, in various rooms across the galaxy.

No. Scratch that. Carter and I did NOT have a relationship.

*

"Slave labor?" demanded Hammond.

"There may be mitigating circumstances..." I tried to tell him, but the venomous, liquefying glare Jack shot me stopped me in my tracks.

"In so many words," he said tersely, rapping his knuckles against the tabletop. "The people down there had absolutely no idea that there was this whole sprawling city above them. They thought that they were working to keep their people ALIVE, when they were just keeping them comfortable."

Hammond appeared distinctly ill at ease, although the cause wasn't immediately apparent. Was he disturbed at what he was hearing, or was it the barely-checked rage in Jack's voice that had him so on edge? True, Jack - and the rest of us - had every right to take this situation seriously and personally. After all, we'd been in that very predicament, believing that our long hours, hard work, and poor living conditions were things shared by one and all in a civilization desperately trying to eke out a living beneath a glacier. We could have DIED for that lie.

And yes, Jack had never been one to sit on his hands when he felt strongly about something. The 'pesky moral stuff' seemed to bother him especially; I could only attribute that to his long military history, perhaps a history that included some rather immoral, unsavory things. Did he equate this slavery with what Apophis and the other Gou'ald did, and the underground workers with the natives of Abydos and other enslaved peoples? That was perfectly normal, right? Sure.

But despite all of this, the unguarded, obvious vehemence in his voice didn't sit well with me. Or with the General.

For the moment, however, however, Hammond seemed inclined to put it aside. "You brought 163 people back from that planet with you, Colonel. Six of who are currently in the infirmary" -- he looked to Frasier for confirmation and she nodded -- "and the rest are scattered throughout the base. Would you mind explaining that in a little more... detail?"

It seemed to be a question Jack trusted me to answer, and he didn't interrupt my response. "They're a working class... a class very few people even have knowledge of, who have had very little experience in social situations other than the workplace... basically, General, they'd never be accepted in mainstream society. Wouldn't fit in. They wouldn't be welcome. Caulder knew it, we knew it, they knew it."

"SOME of them knew it," Sam countered me, hands folded calmly in front of her. She looked to Hammond. "This isn't all of the workers, sir. Not even close. We offered our help in relocation, but the majority were unwilling to take us up on it."

"They remained. They feel that they have an equal right to the city," Teal'c chimed in. "They see it as the fruits of their labor."

Jack nodded emphatically. "They're RIGHT. It IS. If I'd spent my whole life in that pit, powering that... metropolis... I'd feel the same way. Stage a revolt. Take back what was mine. As it is, I was only there a month or so, and I still feel like they owe me a paid vacation or something..."

At this brash comment I winced, and through my chagrin I saw Sam, sitting on Teal'c's left, briefly close her eyes. Way to go, Jack. Just what we needed. Another reminder for Hammond that we had irreversibly impacted yet another culture. No matter how good it had felt, it would still end up sounding less-than-heroic in an official report, and we didn't need Hammond stewing on it on top of that.

Most of the time, I enjoyed the post-mission wrap-up immensely. I showered, dressed, and then I got to go get everything out in the open. It helped organize the facts that had accumulated in my head. More than once, I'd had some kind of cultural or anthropological epiphany sitting at that long table, condensing it into a few scribbled notes while the others were talking. More than that, I enjoyed the familiar routines of it, the customary schedule that everyone abided to. I liked seeing Hammond's and sometimes Frasier's reactions to what we said, to what we did, to our otherworldly exploits and the adventure that they missed out on.

But in this case, at this report, I was nothing if not excruciatingly nervous. For some bizarre reason, I felt as though we were somehow lying to Hammond and the doctor, not so much lying as leaving out... forgetting to tell them something but not so much forgetting as MAKING ourselves forget, a kind of biological 5th Amendment. WHAT we were lying about, WHAT we were omitting, was something that I couldn't begin to fathom, but it bothered me more than Jack's sharp tone. There was a sense of impending doom suspended over my head, and perhaps the entire table. No comforting rigmarole could alleviate THAT.

Hammond glanced at Jack. "So we're talking another relocation?"

"Yes, sir. I was thinking P5R-722. Tropical. Beaches?" he prompted, looking first to me and then across the table to Sam for confirmation. Even as I nodded my acknowledgement, I noticed how... tense Therra's concurrent confirmation was. She didn't look at Jona, not even a little, and her calm hands tensed.

No, dammit, not Therra, not Jona -- Sam, Jack... Sam and Jack...

The bad feeling intensified.

Hammond began to talk about the relocation, what technology we could give to the workers, how long they would have to stay on base, which teams would do this and which teams would do that; I carefully tuned him out, letting my pencil trail inconspicuously across the yellow paper. The epiphany was small, but there it was:

'Carlan... Jona... Therra... Tor -- who are they?'

*

When I arrived back in the infirmary, Sam in tow, Dr. Warner was already done. The injured woman was lying in one of the beds, dressed in a thin gown, her arm artfully bandaged. She blinked groggily, half-heartedly struggling to sit up, weakly focusing on us through light brighter than what she was accustomed to.

"Therra? Is that you?"

Sam smiled tolerantly as she approached the bed; I got the distinct impression that she would do just about anything to get away from me. "Not exactly, Brenna."

The other woman shook her head, clearing it, and then nodded. "Sorry... I'm sorry, Major Carter. I DO know that. Your doctor... he gave me something for the pain and..." She laughed at her own bumbling speech, sobering quickly. "This is an amazing place you have, and so many amazing people... they've been so kind to all of us, and we don't deserve it. Especially not me."

"You DO deserve it," Sam pressed. "You're a good person, Brenna. You're not Caulder. You tried to help us escape, remember?"

She laughed again; it had to be a reaction to the painkillers, and I filed it away. "'Remember'," she echoed thinly. "Major, do you remember everything? About the stamping? When you were taken..."

Even someone who wasn't a medical professional would have picked up on the paling of Sam's complexion. She glanced at me quickly, knowing that I DID see, piquing my interest even further, before looking back at Brenna with a new apprehension. "No. Those memories haven't come back... yet."

The brunette let her head fall back on the pillow. "When you do remember... just keep in mind... I'm sorry."

Further color drained from Sam's face, but she nodded bravely, almost with assurance and confidence, and she let me pull her into the other room.

*

For some indecipherable reason, I was on guard, on the defensive, before I even had reason to be. As it turned out, I DID have a reason. I just didn't know it yet.

Janet pulled me rather unceremoniously into her office, gesturing that I should sit and settling into her chair on the far side of the desk. All at once I felt uncomfortable, like I was on a job interview, or that I'd been called up on the carpet by my superior, or something equally unpleasant. My palms actually began to sweat, and my stomach churned. When Janet began to speak, I could barely hear her words for the rushing of blood in my ears.

"What's the matter?" I interrupted instead, my voice too loud, too harsh. "You gave us our check-ups, you said everything was fine. What's wrong?"

Janet blinked, an uncertain smile on her face. "Nothing's wrong, Sam. I just wanted to talk to you," she assured me in the same gentle, cajoling tone she used with Cassie, with frightened patients, and then she turned to humor. "So... they have a barber shop down there in the cell block?"

The light-hearted joke only further twisted my insides, and one hand went automatically to my clipped locks. It was easy to forget how much time had passed on that planet, how I had looked the last time she and the others had seen me. How long I had been someone completely different. "Long hair is dangerous around the machines," I muttered. "It kept getting in my eyes. Jona cut it for me."

A smile slid quite easily across Janet's features. "Jona, hmm? Well, remind me not to go to him for style tips."

I opened my mouth to protest indignantly, but then my mind caught up and with a rush of hot blood to my face I realized... she had no idea who Jona was. Who he REALLY was. And now after the jest had been made, I couldn't see myself telling her that the snide remark had actually been directed at the Colonel.

Or had it? That was the part that had given me the real headache, that had chewed up my guts since the moment I'd realized that they ought to. Who was Jona in relation to Jack O'Neill? And how did Therra compare with Sam Carter? In a way, they were both me... as though I'd not only played a part but become it. But in another, very real sense, the woman named Therra was one unfamiliar, unknown, a complete mystery, because her particulars were unknown; somehow I had 'played' the character without really knowing a damn thing about her.

Which was what had lead me, along with Carlan's - Daniel's - persistence, to question her very existence.

Janet chatted on for a minute longer, fresh and bright, and I sullenly commented where it seemed appropriate. Though she was just being friendly, being herself, I couldn't help but see her amiable queries about the last mouth as lures for gossip. Or prods towards an answer she already knew, and knew I wouldn't give. For one stricken moment, I felt as though I was being tested, measured and found wanting.

*

Sleep was nearly impossible. I kept waiting for that damn buzzer to go off, jolting me out of a stark, comfy dream into the hot, grimy reality of the mines. If it DID turn out that this was all a fantasy, all in my head, I reasoned, I would, upon awakening, give myself full permission to flip out.

The workers had been shuffled into spare quarters, sometimes two or three per room, but not an utterance of complaint was made. They were certainly better conditions than had been found in the underground labor camp.

I rolled onto my back, staring up at the darkened ceiling and sighing hugely. There were so many questions I'd never gotten answers to. Why had those people been chosen as workers? What, exactly, had been done to them -- to us? How could such a majestic city be powered by a handful of slaves and a bunch of rusty junk that seemed as though it might explode at any random moment? How could an entire civilization as advanced as theirs had seemed allow that kind of impressment to take place? How long HAD it been taking place? Since the very beginning?

I let out an angry growl and rolled over in bed, beginning to acknowledge that the rest Hammond had ordered for SG-1 was simply not going to happen. There was too much going on in my head right now, too many thoughts bouncing around my skull, for my body to relax and for sleep to come.

Jona had never had any problem getting to sleep. Then again, he'd been a pretty simple guy, hadn't he? Work, eat, work, sleep, and work some more. Throw in spending as much time as humanly possible with Therra and...

Therra...

The memory of her sent my mind into a little tailspin, and no matter how much I tried to think of NOTHING, SOMETHING kept rearing its ugly head. What had I done to piss off the universe that it... it persisted in tormenting me like this? Showing me gold and then snatching it away? Depicting how we could be together in every other reality, every other outrageous circumstance, except for this one.

It was just a fantasy, of course... 'being together'... it took two to tango, after all, and I wasn't even sure I still remembered how to dance. But that fantasy was reinforced by a hundred smiles, a dozen touches... a million words all taken in their own special context. The image of her head bowed over a computer keyboard and the residuum of the feeling of that head resting against my shoulder.

It wasn't really fair to think of Carter and Therra as the same person, was it?

Oh well. I did it anyway.

*

I hesitated briefly before knocking on the door of the room I knew was his. Our hosts had obviously indicated that we should get some rest - the lights were dimmed and the traffic in the hallways was non-existent - and it was possible that he was sleeping. Somehow, though, I doubted it.

And as expected, the light rap of my knuckles against the metal was answered almost immediately. He stood there, looking down at me, expression mostly blank and half-curious, shirtless, body half-hidden by the shadows of his darkened room.

I don't know what made me balk - the dark room, the puzzled look, or the bare chest - but I took a quick step back out into the hallway. "I woke you up," I began to apologize.

"I wasn't sleeping," he admitted, blinking in the meager light, regarding his own half-clothed state with some embarrassment. "Couldn't sleep."

Somewhere down the long, gray hallway a door opened and a chill draft blew past and through and between us. Crossing my arms against it, I confessed, "Neither could I."

"Homesick?" he teased.

I returned the wry smile. "Hardly. It's just so... different."

"Not if you think about it," he replied, leaning against the doorframe. "We're still underground, right?"

A hard lump of resentment congealed and hardened in my throat, as thick and bitter as day-old gruel. The liars. The damned liars... letting us work ourselves to death for a better tomorrow when that tomorrow already existed overhead. Letting us live like animals in a pen when they lived in that gorgeous city that was beyond anything I had ever dreamed of. Expecting us to give our lives, our happiness, for them. How many generations HAD? How many generations WOULD HAVE if it hadn't been for our rescuers, our hosts?

"I'm sick of being underground," I said suddenly, vehemently, casting aspersing glances around the corridor, and sneaking a brief peek into the undisclosed room beyond. "You think they'd mind if we went up to the surface?"

"I think we should ask first," was the nervous answer.

But I rejected that idea with a shake of my head. We weren't slaves here, right? We were free... THEY had freed us. And it wasn't as though we were going to go cavorting around their planet. I just... I just wanted to see the sky. And I wanted to see it with Jona.

"Go put a shirt on," I told him, not elaborating, not clueing him in on a specific plan because it would only make him worry.

At first I wondered if my tone had been too harsh, because for what felt like a long while Jona simply stood in the doorway, staring at me strangely. The automatic worry of nightsickness came flooding back... but there would be none of that here, would there? It was just another lie, right?

Eventually, he sighed, putting my fears to rest by pulling back into his darkened room. "I hope you know what you're doing, Therra," he said, and it was a heartfelt plea.

Chapter 2

The dim, empty hallway gave me time and opportunity to dawdle; I took it gratefully. Now that the confusion and euphoria at our homecoming had worn off, I was exhausted - physically, emotionally - and unwilling to talk to anyone else about... what had happened. Hammond had wanted specifics, Janet had asked for details after being brushed off by Sam... but I'd put both of them off. Maybe once I was able to get it all straight in my head, maybe then I would be able to explain it to others... but not now. Not so soon.

I'd actually made it halfway to Kegan's room before chickening out. I knew I had to talk to her, that I had to straighten out what had happened between her and me... or the guy who hadn't really been me. I somehow doubted that she'd care much about our paltry friendship what with everything ELSE that had happened, but that didn't make a difference to me. I wasn't just doing it for her. It was important to me, too.

Not so much tonight, though.

I would grab my stuff from my room, I reasoned in a sudden fit of decisiveness. I would go home, and get some REAL food to eat, not the goop they served in the commissary, and sleep in a real bed... my own bed. I would set the alarm for noonish, come into work when I felt like it, and be a new man by midday.

New man... I gave a devious chuckle. Not quite.

I'd only just turned toward my quarters when I heard it. A laugh. From down the hallway... in the direction of the elevator. A response to the laugh in a deeper tone. Then the first voice again, fast approaching, soft and lilting, a familiar voice... Therra's voice.

No, I reminded myself firmly. Not Therra. There was no Therra. Sam. SAM.

"Stars," said Sam, sounding positively giddy.

Without knowing my reasons, without having much of a reason at all, I silently backtracked down the empty corridor and turned the first available corner, ducking into the shadows of the arc. Waiting, ears pricked, strangely anxious.

"It's hard to believe," agreed Jona's voice.

JACK'S voice. God, how long was it going to take me before I stopped attributing false names to people I'd known for over three years?

And more importantly... what were Jack and Sam doing?

Footsteps drew even nearer before slowing and then ceasing. I stiffened, shirking against the wall, feeling for all the world like I was hiding from some terrible foe, when all I was really doing was, well... eavesdropping on my two best friends.

Not that they made it easy for me. Sam's next words were pitched low, and I could only make out some of what she said. "...told you we wouldn't get in trouble... rules... don't care..."

And Jack. "I guess you're right... was nice... told you everything was going to be okay, didn't I?"

Sam chortled. "Yes. You did."

Silence lapsed momentarily, and then Sam sighed, and my hands started to sweat. There was the sudden urge to dare a peak around the corner, but it didn't last long. If I saw IT, then I would know IT for a fact, and I couldn't handle IT. Not now. Not on top of everything else.

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Jack at last, sounding regretful. Not 'we shouldn't be here' regretful. More of a 'I wish we could be here forever' kind of regretful. Not anything I was used to.

Sam's response must have been nonverbal, because without another word a set of footsteps led away, back in the direction from which they'd come. My sigh of relief came too soon, however, because at that moment Jack turned the corner. And stared at me.

"Hey," I said uneasily, the coward's greeting, not wanting to give him any clue about what I had overheard, what I KNEW. That was another confrontation I couldn't take.

"Hey," he replied, regarding me strangely.

I fumbled for words.

"Daniel... what are you doing here?"

Now it was my turn to look askance at him. No defensiveness, no suspicion, nothing in his manner that suggested he harbored any emotions towards what had gone on in the hallway just now. "Nothing," I said carefully. "What about you?"

Jack pondered the question quite seriously. "I'm hungry," he said finally. "Thought I might get something to eat."

'Liar' I thought.

"Well, good luck," I said.

And I got the hell out of there.

Maybe I wouldn't come in tomorrow at all.

*

"You know," I imparted sadly. "If it wasn't you, I probably wouldn't believe it."

Daniel didn't seem to take any kind of comfort or gratification from the comment; he merely slouched even further into his chair, into himself, and sighed. "I'm starting to wonder if I even believe it. I mean, I didn't see anything, I just picked up a few words, and it was late... maybe I misunderstood."

I ONLY it were that easy, I thought. "If this was anyone else, I would probably agree with you. But as it stands... well, honestly I can't say I'm all that surprised."

"You've been waiting for this to happen," observed Daniel.

I didn't answer immediately, staring down at my hands as though they might provide a satisfactory answer. It was late. I was tired. I'd spent most of the evening treating the people that SG-1 had brought back with them, prescribing antibiotics for infections and nutritional supplements for malnourishment, stitching up a laceration, resetting and casting a broken leg... and running the full series of tests on the members of SG-1 themselves. X-Rays and MRIs had turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Bloodwork was clean. Their memories, as far as they could tell, had returned... although, as Sam had illustrated earlier, there were still portions of their captivity that they couldn't recall. Aside from a few of the obligatory post-mission cuts and bruises, they were in good health... I'd discovered nothing a few days of downtime wouldn't clear up.

But as I'd run through my gamut of technology, drugs, and carefully-placed questions, I hadn't really stopped to realize that the real damage might not be physical or psychological. It might be emotional.

"You think they were together on that planet?" I asked softly, countering his difficult question with one of my own.

He didn't hesitate, or stall by asking exactly what I meant by 'together'. He KNEW what I meant, he knew damn well. "I'm not really sure. I never saw... anything. I mean, they wouldn't have really been all that public about it, but... what I do know is that they seemed very comfortable together. Even after she slipped and called him 'sir'. At the time, of course, I didn't really think all that much of it. They were Therra and Jona and if they wanted to be together... good for them. But as for if they were actually TOGETHER together..."

"You won't rule out the possibility?" I prompted.

"Nope. And THAT'S what's really driving me nuts... that is, if I'm right about what I heard. I KNOW I'm not Carlan. I don't even like the guy that much, I don't like who I was when I was him, and so it's easier to... separate myself from him. But what if Sam and Jack aren't doing that? What if they can't differentiate between who they were and who they are?"

"IS there even a difference?" I pushed.

He groaned. "Doc, it's too late to be getting that philosophical."

I snorted softly, nodding my head in agreement. I'd been all ready to head home when Daniel had burst into the infirmary, looking so wired and ill at ease that both Warner and I automatically assumed that he was in search of medical care. But no, it wasn't that, not really... he was just in a panic over finding out that his best friends' relationship was potentially a lot more intimate than he had assumed. "You're right. And you're right about that other thing, too. I HAVE been waiting for this to happen. I just thought... that it would take a little longer."

Chapter 3

Seven'o'clock sharp the next morning found me in the briefing room, sitting at the long table, hunched over the constantly-revised and updated hard copy of known Gate addresses. Fifteen minutes later, so did Daniel As surprised as I was to see him there - Daniel was usually late for meetings, not an hour early for them - I was more surprised to see the state he was in. His hair was uncombed, his shirt rumpled and obviously slept-in. One untied shoelace trailed lamely behind one boot. He looked like a man who'd practiced perfect sobriety and still had awakened with a hangover: miserable and downright indignant about it.

I attributed it automatically to a rough night, bad dreams; I'd had a few of my own. Nightmares that weren't all make-believe, dark flights of fancy that contained half-truths. Waking up in the underground camp, completely, utterly alone. Stepping through the Stargate to find that the planet on the other side was pitch black... and my mind was utterly empty, without knowledge, without memory, with nothing but fear. Being restrained by faceless captors, forced to watch a spectacular sunset, knowing that light equaled knowledge, and what made me ME was fading further and further into inevitable dusk with every second passed. Terrible dreams that woke me in a sheen of sweat with the taste of bile present in my mouth. Horrible dreams that clung to me through the morning hours. Dreams that had pumped me full of adrenaline, which summarily suggested that I come in early and being the day's work ahead of schedule.

Daniel thrust his hands into his pockets and stared down at me dolefully. "What're you doing?"

I glanced from his face to the book and back up again. "Making a list of uninhabited words suitable to the workers' needs. I know we settled on P5R-722," I remarked, "but we also learned the hard way that it's not such a bad idea to have a back-up."

Daniel nodded slowly, still seeming dour. "Having any luck?"

"Some," I said quickly, and then added with greater truthfulness: "It's hard. Not knowing what they're expecting, knowing what little we can give them. I'm starting to see why so many wanted to stay behind and fight to be citizens. None of them will ever see a city like that again in their lifetimes."

"I suppose letting them just stay on Earth is out of the question."

I tapped my pen against the desk intermittently. "We can't keep them here. And we can't trust them to keep quiet about the SGC out in the real world."

"We can't?"

His voice was accusing, I thought, but I braved the tone. "I'd like to think that we know all of these people, Daniel, that we trust all of them. Maybe at some point we did. We had to. But the fact is that these people are strangers. We don't know anything about them, or who they were, or who they've been programmed to be. We don't even know where they're actually from, why they were chosen to be stamped." He opened his mouth to comment, but I jumped in first, resolute. "I'm not saying we shouldn't help them. Of COURSE we should. It's the right thing to do and it's what we... what we owe them. I'm just saying we shouldn't necessarily trust them with this nation's greatest secret."

Daniel went silent then, which was odd. I'd expected him to start seething about that last harangue, or at least to indelicately broach some of my more diagreeable statements. But if he DID disagree - and I could tell that he did, he had to - he gave no real outward appearances of it... just circled the table and sat down across from me, staring at his hands, the wall, the flag... So I pointedly looked away from him and back down at my notes, jotting down a Gate address already on my paper, just so it would look like I was doing something. I didn't NEED to talk to him. I didn't NEED his friendship. I... I...

I didn't like this... this tension. It was like being back underground, distrustful of everyone, alienated from everything, drawn to but at the same time wary of the big, dark man and the pale, exasperated guy who seemed to be attached to Kegan at the hip. He wasn't that person any more. I wasn't that person. We'd gotten our memories back, so couldn't life just do the same? Go back to the way it was before? Couldn't we have our own selective amnesia, and forget this whole thing ever happened?

Because if we couldn't, if we had to live the consequences of what had happened...

I sighed explosively and turned the page.

"Sam?"

My pen halted, poised above my notebook. Eyes still aimed at the tabletop, I prodded, "Yeah?"

"I... um... I was looking for you last night."

There was a tremulous edge to his voice that made me look up at once. "Were you?" I asked, still defensive, still waiting for him to jump down my throat, or maybe across the table at me.

"I couldn't find you," he said, simply.

I relaxed, and smiled, and went back to my work. If he'd been looking for me, actively trying to find me, he couldn't have been that upset with me, with the situation. Right? "I went home last night, Daniel. We all did," I reminded him.

"But..."

I waited a moment for him to continue, not looking up, not needing to -- I knew his tone of voice that well. I ceertainly knew THAT tone of voice, the one that said that he disagreed, that he wanted to argue a point... that he thought you were lying... but that he couldn't bring himself to say it.

That reaction made no sense. Neither did his expression... that expression... like he was disappointed in me.

"I was tired," I said slowly, trying to get him to understand, trying to get those odd doubts out of his head. "I was tired of being underground, and I was exhausted. I went home and ordered in pizza, watched some TV and went to bed."

Once more, I bent my head to the book, scribbling down some nonsense furiously, single-mindedly ignoring him, mindful of the heat rising in my cheeks. I didn't have a clue, not an idea, of what in the world was wrong with him... but somehow, I DID know. I knew as well as I knew my own name that Daniel's discomfort stemmed in some way from the Colonel and I. With the weird dips and twists and turns my once-innocuous relationship with O'Neill had taken. With the way he had to know how we felt about each other.

HOW he knew, whether he had dragged the information from Janet or Teal'c, or if he had just been more observant than the rest of us... I didn't know that, either. But none of this was about knowing, was it? I KNEW that every day I felt this way about the Colonel, I put my team, my friends, in increasing danger. I KNEW the reasons for the regs, the horror stories, the tales of military terror and sexual harassment and court martial. I KNEW that this was wrong, so wrong, on oh-so many levels. But that knowing... it didn't change a damn thing. If anything, it only made that same damn thing stronger. More prepared to fight, to defend itself, against my logic and intellect. It sensed a danger it was ready to combat with stronger feelings, more dangerous emotion, more vivid daydreams and nightmares. It told me that our friendship had never been innocuous to begin with, that there had been something special there since day one, and since nothing ever stayed the same, that special thing would change, and grow, and continue to grow, until...

Until... what?

THAT, I didn't know.

I looked up, face burning, hand cramping around my pen, eyes hot and watery.

Daniel was gone.

*

"Did you really expect her to tell you the truth?"

"YES," said Daniel sharply, crossing his arms and stalking around my small office in what I could only refer to as a funk. "I mean, this is Sam we're talking about. She doesn't... lie outright to me like that. She just doesn't."

I perched my heels on the edge of my seat, folding up as tightly as possible and resting my chin on my knees. Daniel didn't need me to remind him that what he was saying was no longer true... that Sam HAD outright lied to him, that she had done so seemingly without remorse or hesitation. He didn't need me to remind him of what Airman Jeffreys had conspiratorially mentioned to me during his check-up this morning, that when he'd been walking in from the parking lot late last night, he had seen them - Jack and Sam - strolling along the road just beyond the fence, arms linked, heads together, staring up at the stars.

Thankfully, my arsenal of very large, very ugly hypodermic needles were enough to keep him from spreading the story any further... but rumors had a nasty way of slipping out of reach, of escalating to a fever pitch, of ruining lives.

And the truly terrible part was that I wasn't sure if O'Neill and Sam didn't deserve the consequences of their actions.

Daniel kicked despairingly at my garbage can. "It's not so much that they're doing this," he said, low and soft, eyes full of hurt. "It's the fact that they're lying about it. That they don't trust me enough to just... let me in on their little game. Come on, I know Sam thinks about him differently than she does with me, and I certainly can't expect Jack to just ignore HER... but it's always been about the team, you know?" he pleaded, not to me, not to anyone in particular, just to hear himself speak. "It's been all of us, and now it's just them, their own private little party, and... I don't like it."

"It's hardly a party," I pointed out, curling up tighter in my chair, staring morosely out the open door and thinking that, of all the medications and therapies and vaccinations, there was no way I could help my friends, nothing I could do to get them through this. "This has got to be hell for them both, Daniel. They either go against their feelings or the Air Force. It's a tough decision. It's a personal decision. When it all... it all happened... Hammond and I agreed. We felt that if the Colonel and Sam could keep it under wraps this long, if they felt like they could handle it, that it would be more detrimental to them and to everyone else to split them up."

Daniel's head snapped up, and I cringed. He hadn't even known that such a recourse had ever been discussed, that his whole family had quite nearly been split apart, AGAIN. What a way to find out. What a way to have to continue with what I was saying.

"But if the General finds out about this," I forced out, trying to believe that I couldn't make it all real just by saying the words. "He's not going to care that this all started while you all thought you were... other people. All he's going to see is that it's spilled over into who you actually are..."

"And that they're already lying about it," he finished, flatly.

"Right," I said soberly. "That's not a good sign."

Daniel completed another frustrated circuit of my office before dropping down into the chair across from my desk. "I could still be wrong about this."

I sighed. "I don't think..."

"No, Janet. Listen. I could. I mean it, sometimes it doesn't feel like Carlan's completely gone. Every now and then, I still feel like... like I'm thinking like him. And I was so out of it last night anyway. What if I was completely wrong about what I think I heard? What if Ray Jeffreys misconstrued what he saw, or if he's propagating a rumor... or if he's just messing with us? Granted," he modified, "It's not all that likely. But it's POSSIBLE. I think we owe it to them to find out if it's true or not before we take it to Hammond. Because that's what you're talking about, isn't it?" he accused. "You want to tell the General."

I sighed again and unfolded myself from the seat, feeling cold, unsettled... complicated. "It's not a matter of wanting. It's a matter of duty."

Resolutely, he planted his hands on my desk and leaned across it towards me, blue eyes as intense as I had ever seen them, mouth set in a firm line: the very picture of hold, cold determination.

"So is this."

Chapter 4

From the doorway of the room, I watched O'Neill and found myself frowning at my observations. While he had always been a somewhat competent warrior, his strikes this morning seemed especially intense, exceptionally well-placed, and his brow furrowed over his eyes in profound concentration. This was not the countenance of a man enjoying a stress-relieving exercise. Something was not well with O'Neill.

Having come to that conclusion, I entered the room, careful to walk into his line of site so that he would not be startled by my pretence. He nodded at me in greeting but did not cease his activities, continuing to pound his padded fists - gloves, I remembered - into the flank of the hanging bag in a vaguely rhythmic pattern. Sweat beaded at his hairline, and he blinked at it but did not bother to wipe it away.

When this had gone on long enough, when the sweat began to accumulate at the tips of his nose and chin and his breathing was hard and rapid, I retrieved his water bottle from the table and offered it to him. Pointedly.

O'Neill took the hint, lowering his fists and removing the padding, finally taking the proffered bottle. "Hey, Teal'c," he greeted between thirsty gulps. "Care to join me?"

"We have a briefing in thirty minutes, O'Neill."

He shrugged and reached for a towel slung across the handlebars of the exercise bicycle, wiping his face with it. "We've got time," he insisted.

I refused to spar with the man, either physically or verbally. Memories of the previous night still sour in my mind; I 'cut to the chase'. "Something is wrong," I accused.

He swiped the towel across his neck. "No... nothing's WRONG, Teal'c. I'm just a little antsy, that's all."

I paused only slightly before realizing that his comment had nothing to do with insects; it was, at least in some part, the cause of his nervous behavior. I empathized. "You are not the only one."

O'Neill glanced up quickly, wariness passing over his features. "Rough night?"

"I had great difficulty reaching a state of Kel'no'reem," I admitted, reluctant to do so, even to my friend. It felt awkward to be discussing this problem, a problem I hadn't expected to have. Yes, at one point I had forgotten how to enter what the others referred to as 'meditation', but that had only been because I did not know who I was. Now that my memories had returned, I should have had no such difficulty.

But still...

"No kidding?" asked O'Neill, only his tone telling me that he was deeply concerned. "How bad is that?"

"Most of my injuries have healed," I reassured him. "However..."

"Yeah, I know... bad."

We both paused as a sweated-suited young man entered the previously-deserted room, heading for the hand-held weights. My gaze followed him as he traversed the gym, nodding in salutation as he glanced in our direction, and then I glanced back at O'Neill, intending to remind him that he had not answered to my observation. But he was staring off into space, mouth held in a hard line, eyes cast to some imaginary point in the air. Thinking, no doubt, of his own 'bad' things.

"Major Carter..." I began.

"This had nothing to do with Carter," he exploded, cutting me off in mid-observation, whipping his head around and glaring at me with tempered venom. "This wasn't about Carter. Her name was Therra."

Even as taken aback by his reaction as I was, by the vehemence in his voice and the anger apparent in his face, I was more concerned with WHAT he had said, rather than HOW he had said it. "Are you saying you do not hold yourself accountable for your actions?" I asked coldly, knowing he would take offense.

He did, but he did not recant his words as I had expected, or apologize for his statement. If anything, my denunciation of his actions only seemed to further agitate him. "I have to," he hissed, suddenly mindful of the young man across the room. "because if I don't say that it was Jonah, that it was all Jonah, I'm going to have to explain what *I* did. To Hammond. To the powers that be. Same with Carter... and I can't think of a faster way to throw her career off-track. Can you?" He wrung the towel fiercely in his hands. "You were THERE, Teal'c. You and Doc. You know what happened. You know how we... feel. And you should also know that... that it doesn't matter." He looked away from me, breaking eye contact in a dismissive way. "Okay? Doesn't matter. It was Jonah and Therra... had nothing to do with us."

He said it with such conviction that I wished that I could believe him. But there was too much self-doubt in his eyes, too much energy coursing through his body, for me to accept what he was saying. And O'Neill was correct: I HAD been there when his feelings for Major Carter - and hers for him - had been made known. And I had seen that the depth of their emotions were simply too great to be ignored, for sake of command or loyalty, and - I believed - to great to be covered up by any alternate persona.

Seeing the cut of the skin that marked my symbiote's home in my belly had been enough to incite me to remember. Was it so impossible, then, that upon spending time together, some small part of Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter would have begun to surface in 'Jonah' and 'Therra'? Even if it was just a random feeling, an errant memory, it would be enough.

Or, in O'Neill's opinion, too much.

There was a large clang from the corner of the room, and I looked over quickly to see the young man stooped over one of the weights, which had slipped from his hand. His face was flushed red, and I found myself wondering if our 'quiet' voices had been quiet enough.

When I looked back towards O'Neill, eager to continue this conversation in a more private place, I found that he had taken the moment of distraction to slip away.

***

"You know, Sam's going to kill us if she finds out about this."

"Me. She's going to kill ME."

"How'd you get her key, anyway?"

"I could tell you, Daniel, but then I'd have to--"

"Shoot me, I know. Been there, done that."

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of tetanus shots."

"Feels about the same," I remarked, reaching for the light switch. Despite Janet's big words, I figured that the doctor simply had a spare of Sam's key, the same as I did for Jack and Teal'c. I'd never bugged Sam about getting my own copy; being of the opposite gender - it hadn't really seemed to matter to me. However, if it turned out that she'd made JACK a duplicate, I was going to have to start getting offended.

Then again, Jack having a duplicate would have all sorts of implications that I didn't want to think about.

The lights went on and I instinctively flinched, feeling like a criminal caught in the act. Sam was up at the morning briefing, of course, with Jack and Teal'c and Hammond, the same meeting I was going to be skewered for not attending. But it was the only time in the foreseeable future that we would know for a fact that Sam wouldn't come strolling into her quarters when we were rummaging through them, looking for evidence that she was in violation of some of the Air Force's most serious regulations.

Ah, yes... it was times like this when I really hated myself.

It wasn't like I was out to get my two best friends... it wasn't like that at all. And it wasn't even like I would be upset if I found out that they HAD started... something... on the planet. I'd reserved judgement in THAT case. But for better or worse, I had to know one way or the other. Were they doing this? Had they lied to me?

I sure hoped not.

"So what exactly are we looking for here?" asked Janet, carefully closing the door behind her and scanning the room with a practiced eye.

Good question, I thought wryly. Exactly WHAT would jump out at us as an indication of some kind of... sexual relationship? An open box of prophylactics? A love letter from Jack? An article of his clothing? Sighing deeply at my own swerve into cynicism, I daintily lifted the corner of the bedspread and peeked within. Janet went for the closet.

The moment held a surreal quality that only a scholar of ancient mythos could really appreciate. Every culture seemed to have their famous love story, their tales of lust and unrequited adoration. Sha're and I had had a romance like that: not fairy-tale but hauntingly mythological, a parable in its own sick way, a true tragedy in every sense of the word. What if Sam and Jack were just one more example of fabled, fated love... predestined to happen, doomed to fail? For God's sake, hadn't we been careening toward this situation since Edora, since Sam was forced to sit down and rethink everything she'd previously assumed about Jack? Since he'd returned and had had to have some sense slapped into him: Look at what she did for you. Look at everything of herself she gave to get you back, you ungrateful bastard.

After a moment of scrutiny, I let the coverlet drop and moved to the night table.

Hadn't there been an extra tenseness between them since the mission on Thor's ship, when Sam had - reportedly - gone against Jack's wishes, taken a gamble, convinced the General that her plan would work, and - along with Teal'c - joined him on board a spacecraft that was condemned to destruction? Two weeks on that planet after blowing the ship... just the three of them... and just the TWO of them if Teal'c decided to do a little communing with Junior. I highly - HIGHLY - doubted that anything... unmilitary... had gone on, but we'd never really know, now would we? And at the very least, it had added a new flavor to their relationship. It had changed things.

And hadn't things been even MORE changed since Martouf's death? The full story had never been gleaned - Janet had cowardly claimed doctor-patient confidentiality and Teal'c had refused to let anything slip. The only other source was Anise, and I would rather have another appendectomy than voluntarily engage in conversation with that woman. Besides, I wasn't stupid. We'd thought they'd lied, it had turned out that they'd merely left something out. If that something wasn't immediately obvious to everyone who'd ever been in a room with them both for more than five minutes, I didn't know my friends.

I REALLY hoped that I knew my friends.

I took a quick glance underneath the bed, glanced reluctantly at the bedside drawer... and breathed a sigh of reprieve as Janet called me over. Even if we DID find something here, something incriminating, something incontrovertible, I didn't want to be the one to be doing the finding. Although the rust-colored, quilted tunic that Janet pulled out for closer inspection didn't exactly qualify as a FIND, not in my book.

"This is what you wore back from P3R-118?"

"Yeah," I muttered, already distracted, turning my back to her and scanning the room again. Nothing SEEMED out of place...

"Why would she keep it?"

"I don't know," I admitted, finally spying something on the floor near the nightstand.

"Did you keep yours?"

I hadn't - why would I? - but I didn't bother to answer, lurching across the room, guts clenched in anticipation. I knelt on the floor, picked up my exhibit A, and studied it. "When was the last time it rained?"

"What?"

"Has it rained lately?"

There was a moment of pause and the tinny clanking of metal hangers as Janet replaced the tunic in the closet and joined me on the floor. Kneeling beside me, placing one hand on my knee for balance, she frowned at the object in my hand.

A tennis shoe. A pair of innocuous, white tennis shoes. Well, almost white; Sam had obviously owned them for a while. But beyond the usual grease and grime, there was something else: dirt and grass caked onto the soles of both shoes... as though whoever had been wearing them had recently trod over moist and muddy terrain. There were also streaks of dirt on the floor, in the exact spot, so whoever had soiled them had done so somewhat recently.

"There was a storm the morning you guys came back," she said, sighing heavily. My shoulders slumped. It was only circumstantial, of course, because Sam had claimed to have gone home last night, and she could have at any point stepped in mud. But it did lend some credence to what Airman Jeffreys had said: that he had seen Sam and Jack together, walking arm-in-arm beyond the fence. There was dirt beyond the fence. Dirt that might have still been mud on a damp day after a storm.

Damn.

Chapter 5

"Let me put it to you this way," said General Hammond. "I want them off this base in 72 hours."

I surreptitiously glanced at Sam; her eyes bulged as she considered the logistics of this. "Sir... with respect, that's going to take some doing. What we're suggesting here is starting them a settlement - a civilization - from scratch. That's a big job. Now... even with a planet picked out and ready to go, it's going to take time. We can't just send them through the Gate and tell them to fend for themselves."

"Let me remind you that you brought back over one hundred refugees," Hammond snapped. Hammond hardly ever snapped, not this early in the day, and certainly not without a crisis or ten on hand. But he was tense; we all were. "Our facilities here are limited."

Carefully modulating her expression, Carter looked away, eyes filled with such frustration and distress that I almost jumped to her defense. Thankfully, Teal'c jumped first.

"We temporarily relocated the same amount when the Edoran population was displaced," he said, studiously not looking at me, as most people seemed to do when the subject of Edora came up. "I do not believe it is the number of workers that disturbs you."

Hammond scowled. Teal'c was right; even I knew the real reason. I planted my hands firmly on the tabletop, and the sudden noise started all three of them. "Come on, General, you can say it. You're not just concerned about the number. You're worried about THEM. Who they are. Who they were."

He regarded me evenly. "'Worried' is a little too strong a word, Colonel."

"But I'm right."

He sighed, seeming to give up any semblance of impartiality... if that was what he'd been trying to project at all. "You tell me their society doesn't have any unemployment or crime, and then you show me an entire populace of people who don't even know who they are..."

"So... Caulder and his people round up the occasional homeless person and wipe his memory," Carter contested. "That doesn't make them dangerous."

"Same with any supposed 'criminals'," I agreed. "Sir, they considered US criminals, for crying out loud. Caulder thought we deserved that kind of punishment... for 'judging' their way of life. If that doesn't tell you something about their system of justice, nothing does. Besides, underground... it was all fairly... civil. The only fights I ever saw... well, I started them!"

My strained sense of humor seemed to be lost on the General. "I understand that the three of you - and Doctor Jackson, wherever he is - underwent some serious physical and psychological trauma during this mission, and that you must have... bonded with the other workers. That's why I think you may not be seeing the facts of this situation objectively. Maybe the stamping process made them all perfect angels. Maybe they weren't even all that bad before. But we don't know. And I'm not afraid to admit that the unknown... worries me. If you were thinking clearly, and were considering the best interests of this base, you'd be worried too."

All of my impatient energy petered out; my hands slid across the table as I slumped back in my seat, feeling like a scolded child.

Was I thinking clearly? I wasn't sure. About twelve hours had gone by since Brenna had smashed through our chemical fantasies, announcing our names, our ranks, our lives... all so cavalierly, like it was no big deal to her. Like all the lies she had fed us didn't matter because now she was doing the right thing. Like trying to cover up a human being with another, foreign personality was nothing too be terribly ashamed of.

So, no - I'd just answered my own question - I wasn't thinking clearly. The ire that raised bile in the back of my throat whenever I thought about what had been done to us: that wasn't me and I knew it. Yeah, I was mad at Caulder. I was pissed, actually, about his society's lofty attitudes towards the worth and treatment of human life... that pesky moral stuff still bothered me after all these years, and for that I was thankful. But my conscious level of irritation and the wrath that burned through me at a deeper level was OFF. That was the only way I could put it. And I didn't like it. At all.

Not thinking clearly.

Frasier said we had checked out fine, that there were no funky chemicals still in our bloodstreams, that our brains weren't any more banged up than usual. But outside damage and inside wounds were very, very different. Of all people, I should remember that.

"Understood, sir," said Carter meekly. I dipped my head in agreement, not looking at any of them.

If we couldn't trust our own judgement, seemed we'd have to rely on everyone else's for the time being.

*

When we were alone, I stood, drifting across the room to the large window and staring out over a larger room. It wasn't so much the scope that continued to amaze me: it was the order of it all, the cleanliness, the comfort.. Their clean skin, hair, clothes... their freedom to come and go... that was alien to me. But their dedication to their work, to protect their home and the people they loved, was all too familiar. Everyone seemed to know where they were going, what they were going... in that way, it reminded me of home.

I looked over my shoulder. Therra still sat at the table, arms crossed over it, looking dejected... but still beautiful. I felt myself smiling, remembering the walk we had taken the night before, underneath an alien sky... I'd been in heaven, arm in arm with the best thing home had had to offer. The night had been brisk but wonderfully clear. Not a flake of snow in sight. Just gray wisps of cloud cover drifting lazily over patterns of shining dots - stars - that had seemed almost familiar. And Therra had been just as enchanting as ever, her energy and increasing penchant for risk thrilling; her eyes, reflecting moonlight and artificial light, had been mesmerizing.

Feeling my eyes on her, she finally stood, and joined me at the window. Side by side we stood there, staring out over the room, the people, the silent circle of stone, separated by a few respectable inches until her nearness was simply too tempting. Lowering my gaze somewhat, but keeping it focused ahead, I took my left hand from my pocket and let it rest against her lower back.

Her head snapped around, and she stared at me, expression revealing shock, fear... but only for a second. Then it seemed to melt away, draining from her face within seconds, replaced by that same matter-of-fact attraction I had come to know and love... and a sliver of coyness as well.

She sidled up against me, and my hand made its way across her body, curling around her waist.

"For the first time in our lives," said Therra, "we're going to be home. And it'll actually be our home, somewhere we're listened to, and appreciated, and accepted, and reap what we sow. Where we can see the sky whenever we want, and not be treated like tools by some administrator living in an ivory tower."

I smiled. "You make it sound pretty great."

"I'm excited."

"You're always excited."

She laughed. "I'm optimistic, too."

"Because... you think you can make a difference."

"You know me too well."

"No argument here."

She laughed again, a delightful, childlike sound, and turned in my loose embrace. "Feelings," she murmured, as though it was some random notion that had swept through her mind, and then she kissed me. Full-on, hard, and brief, but not so brief that it didn't take me back to another time and place where she'd bestowed her eager kisses. Where the dark shadows of the enclave had enveloped us, save the occasional spark of nearby flame that illuminated our tryst.

*

My feet pounded against the floor in time with the rapport of my heart against my ribcage. Stress and exhaustion, anxiety and urgency. Had to find them... had to talk to them... had to keep them away from everyone until this whole mess got figured out. Away from everyone. Especially Hammond.

I reached the threshold of the briefing room... and felt suddenly dizzy. I had no idea HOW dizzy until, stopping short, I felt my head knock painfully against the doorway.

They stood in front of the window - the window! For all to see! - wrapped in each others arms, staring into each others eyes, and as I watched in stunned acceptance, Sam raised her lips to Jack's.

Unquestioningly, he kissed back.

Choking on perfectly normal air, I stepped back out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me. My head hurt, but that was the least of my cares. Holy...

"Doctor Jackson?"

Crap.

Hammond stood behind me, looking grim. Much too grim to simply be upset at my absence from the meeting.

If he'd been in his office, he could have seen everything, I realized. Through the star map or the open doorway, he could have seen the whole room. He could have seen THEM. I blinked and rubbed the aching bump on my head.

He HAD seen everything.

"Doctor Jackson," he said again, and I realized he was fighting for composure. "Why do I have the strangest feeling that you can explain this to me?"

Chapter 6

Running my eyes over the computer printout for the third time, I realized that I wasn't any more likely to find the answer now then I had been during my first read-through... especially since I wasn't completely sure of what the answer WAS. I was looking for something out of normal, of course, but when one worked at a facility where one's patients routinely encountered and interacted with completely alien environments... "normal" could be subjective indeed.

All I could be certain of was that the Airman had been telling the truth when he'd spoken of Sam and O'Neill's rendezvous the night before, and that Daniel had been just as correct with what he'd overheard in the hallway later that same night. I believed them because I had seen with my own eyes the brittle layer of restraint that held the Colonel and Sam in professional bonds; it was professionalism and pride that kept them at arm's length from each other, nothing much else. Should that pride be removed, that need for strict conduct wiped away, would it really take much for them to act on the feelings they continued to pretend they didn't actually have?

That certainly explained how Therra and Jonah could have gotten close: drawn to each other perhaps not so much because of simple familiarity but because certainly not all things could be reprogrammed with a "memory stamp". I wouldn't have been the slightest bit surprised to find out that their two 'alternate selves' had established some sort of relationship, something just as meaningful but probably more physical then what they were allowed now. I might have even secretly welcomed such a fling, in the hopes that it would quell their appetites and satisfy their curiosity about one another... at least for the time being.

But if that hadn't happened, if in fact the opposite had happened, and O'Neill and Carter had been reluctant to give up their relationship as easily as they had their false personas...

That was it, though. They wouldn't do that. It wasn't like them.

So there had to be another explanation. There simply had to be. There was just no other satisfactory answer.

Whatever that answer was, however, it wasn't evident in their blood test results.

I inhaled to let loose with a terrific sigh, and choked on the intake of air as Hammond marched into the infirmary, Daniel hot on his heels and making panicked faces over the General's shoulder. My heart sinking, I slowly stood from the counter stool, clutching the unhelpful reports in one suddenly-sweaty hand, and made my way over to them.

Hammond was not a happy camper.

"Sir," Daniel was saying in that deceptively-forceful tone, the one that masked the fact that he was actually pleading, "I just think before you take any action... that we all might later regret... you should FIRST listen to what the two of us have to say." I glared at the man, but then again, he didn't know that my precious medical truths and certainties had, in these circumstances, left me utterly empty-handed.

Hammond was in that special place between shock and rage, hovering in limbo between being absolutely speechless and absolutely and - quite vocally - pissed. "You're asking me to believe that there's some good explanation for why Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter have decided to flaunt an obviously unprofessional relationship? Not a room away from my office? In plain sight of the embarkation room? Doctors, I'm warning you, this better be something a little more imaginative then "an alien virus"."

I winced, not so much at the General's harsh tone as at the realization that the worst had happened. The very worst. "Sir," I began meekly, forcing my words to pick up steam and certitude. "We're not trying to make excuses for them, or their behavior... whatever it may be. But I think you should know that we believe there's more to this situation then meets the eye."

Hammond blinked at me, glancing at Daniel and then back with an expression that said something like, 'I'd expect this from him, but not from you'. "How long have you known about this?"

"Just since today, sir," I answered. "In fact, I think... I'm fairly certain that it started during the mission to P3R-118... not at all before."

As I spoke, I glanced surreptitiously around the infirmary; the last thing we needed was some visiting airman or half-drugged patient to overhear and assist in the spread of rumors. But for once, the area was quiet and nearly empty. The injured members of SG-4 had gone home, and most of our visitors from 118 were patched up and languishing in empty rooms. Brenna's bed was beyond the curtain - despite my best efforts, her arm wound had still become infected - but when I had checked in on her only a few moments ago, she'd been so fast asleep I'd excused the guard who'd spent the morning watching over her.

"Remember," Daniel entreated, "we told you about the stamping process they used, the false personalities they gave us... Carlan, Therra, Jonah, Tor... Well, we were different people. And we all probably did things we aren't exactly proud of. That is, I... Jack and Sam..."

He stammered, looking to me for help. Hammond looked unimpressed.

"I mean," he continued, "every now and then even I find myself... thinking like Carlan. And it's hard to explain how that's different, but I... he was a weird guy, strange ideas of loyalty. He made some pretty big leaps of faith, of course, based on... on instant, but still..."

That was it.

I repressed a giddy laugh. My God, that was it.

I jumped into the conversation, garnering the attention of an ever-more-peeved Major General as I slapped the medical reports against my empty palm. "We don't have a stitch of actual biological evidence to back this up, sir... but I think we both know that some of the worst damage never shows up on paper."

Daniel squinted at me. "What are you talking about?"

"You said it yourself," I said quickly. "You find yourself taking on the role of Carlan now and then, in some... small way. Thinking, talking, acting like him?"

He squirmed. "I was incredibly rude to Sam this morning. I know... I know I have the capability to be incredibly mean as much as anyone, but still... I left feeling that... it wasn't me."

"Your bloodwork is clean," I pushed, "and your MRIs came back normal. But Carlan isn't completely... gone. You got so used to being him... that your mind hasn't been totally able to let him go."

Daniel's face brightened. "So you're saying that... even though the memory stamp has worn off, those... people are still there? In here? In our heads?"

I nodded eagerly. "You haven't been able to remember exactly how the stamp was affected, but I'd bet my medical degree that it was a chemical process meant to block off certain parts off your brains leaving other parts vulnerable to tampering." I paused. "Think of it as... water, running downhill through a channel. Block off that channel and the water will naturally find another path, the path of least resistance. It'll even create a new channel. Take away the block, and that new channel will continue to exist. Now, in this analogy, your personalities are the water and... the block was the memory stamp. By altering your memories, it created a new personality."

"Which still exists," Daniel concluded, looking daunted.

"So... my people are now schizophrenics?"

I looked at Hammond aghast; I'd completely forgotten that he was standing there, listening to Daniel and me brainstorm. He knew it, too, and looked so annoyed that I decided not to mention that schizophrenic wasn't really the correct term, that dissociative identity disorder was closer... but still not exactly right. The way things were headed, we'd probably be able to come with our own name for it. The Carter-O'Neill Syndrome did have a slight ring to it.

*

A door closed. Startled at the sound, I took a dizzied step backwards and opened my eyes. When had I closed them?

The Colonel stood only a few feet away, looking similarly disconcerted. I took a quick glance at the Stargate, just beyond the window, wondering if something had affected it to make the base - and thus the floor - tremble. But the great ring was still and silent, the Gateroom quiet and nearly empty, save a few technicians working on a MALP. One was looking up in my direction with an odd expression on his face.

Suddenly panicked, I took a step away from the window, a step away from O'Neill. My heart jack-hammered against my chest with a spasmodic lurch, and my body jerked around it.

Darkness blanketed my vision in less than the time it took to draw a breath.

Smoke billowed, and the dimness was full of shifting forms, moving bodies.

"Carter, get out of here!"

A hand latched onto my wrist, and another grabbed a handful of my jacket. Flailing my free arm behind me, my fist caught and fiercely backhanded the second man's jaw. He cursed wordlessly and released me, staggering back into the shadows. The terrible shadows. Creeping in on me like living, breathing THINGS.

The smell of sulfur and

Caulder's cold and disdainful eyes and

A flash of hot metal against a column of billowing, searing steam.

And the shadows.

"No!"

The hand on my wrist was like a vise.

"No," I said again, but this time it came out as a whisper and not a scream as the shadows seized and instantly receded, sucking themselves back into bare gray walls and utilitarian furniture and... a concerned, unfamiliar face.

It was the hand attached to that face that held my wrist.

"Whoa! Are you okay?"

I blinked, and the last of the miasma faded, finally allowing me to recognize the man in front of me as Colonel O'Neill. One of the Earth people, the people who had brought us back here and who promised to find us a new home on another planet. Wondering what kind of mortifying display I'd just put on before him, I took a hasty step back. He dropped my wrist.

"I'm... fine..." I stuttered. "I'm sorry..."

And I left. Quickly. And went looking for Jonah.

Chapter 7

Sometimes the mere act of siting behind my desk was comforting. I would see the medals on the walls, the accolades from various high-ranking officials, Presidents included. I would rifle through my drawers and see the myriad folders marked CLASSIFIED, and the weighty nameplate that proclaimed my rank, and the oft-used red telephone that connected me to higher powers... higher both figuratively and literally. Sometimes seeing all of that and remembering what it meant - my station, my position, all the hard workk over the years, all our successes in the face of overwhelming odds - would assist in a particularly horrendous command decision. Sometimes it was comforting. Sometimes it would help.

This was not one of those times.

Truth be told, this was actually one of those times when I would have liked nothing better than to lift the red phone from its cradle and place a long distance call. A secure call. A call to a man I was fairly certain I could trust with the well-being of this facility and its crew. How wonderful to have the responsibility on someone else's shoulders, to bring the matter to another's attention and leave them to deal with it.

But that wouldn't be fair to my people, and it wouldn't be right. It would be cowardice, I reminded myself, paging through the medical reports Frasier had given me to mull over. The utterly inconclusive, completely unhelpful medical reports. The decision of what to do now was mine in this situation more than any other. No matter how much I hated dealing with these finicky personnel issues, no matter how much I wanted to believe that the whole convoluted situation didn't exist, the Colonel and Major's fates at this compound were under my jurisdiction. It was my call. I couldn't afford to stick my head in the sand any longer, and this recent development proved that fact too perfectly.

The medals, the accolades, the papers hardly seemed comforting at a time like this. They only served to remind me where my true loyalties were supposed to lie. Not to the fine people who served under me day in and day out, willing to pay the greatest price in an era considered peacetime by most. No, the owners of my loyalties were those who funded us, supported us... and in some ironic cases, those who tried to pull the rug out from under us.

And so, I reflected, the decision that I made would have very little to do with what was best for these people and this base. It would have everything to do with what the higher-ups would think about my resolution.

At the sounds of footsteps in the hall I pulled myself together, calling out "Come in" no later than Jack's knuckles first rapped against the door.

When the Colonel entered, he did so with a mild wince already creeping up around the edges of his expression. Instantly I wondered if he'd already been warned by the doctor and Daniel... but then my mind flashed back to this morning's terse briefing. Goodness. Only this morning? It seemed as though it had all happened ages ago.

Time's fidelity was always called into question when your life, precariously balanced, started fraying at the seams. Sometimes it moved too fast, others too slow, but never at a pace appropriate to your current trauma.

"You wanted to see me, General?"

I marveled at the genuine confusion in his voice even as I suggested he take a seat. If he wasn't expecting a dressing-down for his behavior at the meeting, he probably thought the subject of the day would be no more contentious than what do to with the workers. He'd put everything else entirely out of mind. He was good at that. A little too good.

"I have a rather strange question for you, Colonel," I breached, figuring to at least give him fair warning. "But I expect an honest answer."

His forehead creased and his mouth turned down. "Of... course, sir," he said earnestly, staring at me strangely, probably wondering why my trust in him had just been called into doubt. I felt even worse.

Nonetheless, it had to be done. "Colonel... this morning, what did you do? After the briefing, I mean. When the rest of us left. Where did you go... what did you do?"

The frown deepened. "Well, sir, I just came from meeting with Sergeant Tucker. Um... concerning the supplies that are going to be necessary for relocating the--"

"No," I interrupted, more sharply that I had intended. "RIGHT after Teal'c, Doctor Frasier, Doctor Jackson and myself left the room this morning. What did you do?"

Jack, who had been leaning forward on his knees, suddenly sat back in the chair looking disturbed. "Sir... I'm sorry... did I do something wrong?"

My sympathy ebbed as I recalled exactly what had led to this little rendezvous: coming out of my office to see two of my best officers... now, what was the term my granddaughter used? Making out? Yes, that was it. Carter and O'Neill in an embrace that signified a lot more than your run-of-the-mill military camaraderie. Making out.

And the fact that O'Neill was sitting in front of me with his face full of puzzlement as I questioned him on exactly that time frame meant one of two things. Either he was a superb actor and was lying to me, and all the faith I had in him over the years was at the very least misdirected if not wholly misplaced... or else Frasier was right about this split personality thing and he honestly didn't remember. 'Blatant insubordination' versus 'serious medical condition'. I wasn't sure which one to hope for.

Jack fidgeted nervously at my silence. He shrugged. "I... was..." He blew out a breath of caged energy. "I wasn't in the best of moods," he admitted, watching my expression carefully. "Wanted a little time to gather my thoughts before I went to see Tuck. Um... Carter was there too. She could vouch for me."

Instinctively, my hands tightened into fists at the officer's name. Bad reaction. It belied the rotten feeling I had about this whole predicament. "And when did Carter leave the room?"

A brief shadow passed over his face, but it might have merely been an instant of strained recollection. "Just a few seconds before I did. Didn't say where she was going."

Knowing that Doctor Jackson had been sent to find the Major, I let the subject slide in favor for an even more horrible one. One of those talks you never wanted to have. One of those places you never wanted to find yourself in, with a rock on one side and a hard place on the other. And was there really any way to bring this up delicately? "I'm concerned," I said, a long-suffering sigh finding its way into my words, "about you and Major Carter."

Jack's face went through an impressive array of emotions before I could even draw breath. First continued confusion as to my reasons, then horrified realization, and then finally deep and anguished acceptance. "Oh. That." He looked down at his lap. "I was waiting for this axe to fall," he confided, glancing back up. "And just when you think it's safe to go back in the water..."

"You love her." Inwardly, I winced. Yes, it was an accusation, but I hadn't meant it to sound so... accusatory.

Jack flinched, his body rigid. "Okay... just to get something straight... the 'l' work never once passed my lips. I'm not even sure..." his voice trailed off, expression changing, becoming defiant. "You know what? Fine. I DO love Carter. Just like I love Teal'c, Daniel... even you... on your good days..."

"That isn't what I mean, Jack," I chided him. "And you know it."

His shoulders slumped. "Come on, General. The whole thing was recorded as surveillance video, right? So you've seen the tape. And Teal'c and Doc Frasier were even there for the live performance. I kept waiting for you to say something, to show up some day and find Carter reassigned to another team or chained to a desk... but it never happened. And I was like... 'yeah!. He still trusts us. Hammond knows that nothing has to change because of what Anise's little... machinations forced us to bring out in the open'. I was thrilled," he admitted, shrugging. "I was relived. And I don't understand why you're bringing this up now. You were right, sir. Nothing's happened... nothing's changed."

I wasn't sure how to react to this words. No one was that good of an actor, especially not this man. But to reconcile these strong words with what I had SEEN, with my very eyes...

"I realize that, Colonel," I grumbled, feeling a headache starting to form. "You're dismissed."

"Sir?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

He said nothing, unfolding himself from the chair and bolting for the door. The look he shot me as he left was one of unadulterated bewilderment... and not a little fear.

It had happened. He denied it. But he wasn't lying.

'Serious medical condition' seemed to have won this round.

Chapter 8

Even as my footsteps echoed in the corridor, Janet's words echoed in my brain. "I think we need to find them," she'd said when Hammond had asked her professional opinion on our next course of action. "And we need to keep an eye on them. But until we get any more evidence for my theory, supportive or otherwise, I also think that we should NOT mention our suspicions to the Colonel and Major."

"Why's that?" I'd asked, saving Hammond the trouble.

"Because I have exactly no idea how they would react!" she'd exclaimed, still smacking a sheaf of paper against her open palm. "For instance... Daniel: what if I was to tell you right now that fifteen minutes ago I saw you in the briefing room kissing Sam? What would you think of that?"

I'd wrinkled my nose. "Well, for one, I'd think you were insane."

Janet had made her 'you see?' expression.

I'd continued. "But I'm not Jack, either." Hammond had grunted in acknowledgement.

The doctor had abandoned that line of reasoning. "The human brain is simply not hardwired to safely support multiple distinct personalities. It's been known to happen, but only with extensive medication and psychotherapy, and it usually doesn't just come out of nowhere halfway through life. If the Colonel and Major actually are both bouncing between personalities at this point, chances are the two personas aren't even aware of each other's existence. But if they